in-vase flowers were similar to those in on-tree flowers (Fig. 7B,
D and F). However, temporal expression patterns of PsF3H1 and
PsDFR1 in in-vase flowers were not similar to those in on-tree flowers, and expression levels of PsF3H1 and PsDFR1 gradually decreased
during in-vase flower development (Fig. 7C and E). Generally,
PsCHS1, PsF3H1 and PsDFR1 showed higher transcript abundances
in on-tree flowers than in in-vase flowers, while PsCHI1, PsF3
H1
and PsANS1 exhibited similar expression levels in on-tree and invase flowers at the same developmental stage (Fig. 7).
The expression of anthocyanin biosynthetic genes directly
regulates anthocyanins biosynthesis. In the present study, the
anthocyanin contents in the middle petals of on-tree flowers
greatly increased from S1 to S3 (Fig. 4B), which is considered as the
inevitable consequence of the up-expression of most anthocyanin
biosynthetic genes during this period. A previous study found that
the peak time of anthocyanin content is later than the peak time
of the expression of all structural genes in pink-flowered Chrysanthemum × morifolium (Han et al., 2012), suggesting that the effec